Yesterday, I blogged about a New York Times article that details the myriad flaws in the USDA’s regulation of ground beef. Today, a new report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) spotlights the Food and Drug Administration’s struggles to ensure the safety of non-meat products.

CSPI examined public health records from 1990 to 2006 and identified the top ten FDA-regulated foods responsible for foodborne illness outbreaks. The top ten is:

1. Leafy greens
2. Eggs
3. Tuna
4. Oysters
5. Potatoes
6. Cheese
7. Ice Cream
8. Tomatoes
9. Sprouts
10. Berries 

Those foods were linked to 1,500 separate foodborne illness outbreaks and almost 50,000 illnesses, according to the report. To make matters worse, the vast majority of illnesses are never reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the source of CSPI’s data. The report calls reported illnesses “the tip of the iceberg.”

It would be nice if U.S. Senators read The New York Times, or checked the CSPI website. If they did, they might approach food safety reform with far greater urgency, instead of ho-humming along. While the House in July passed its bill aimed at overhauling food safety regulation, the Senate has made little progress. The CSPI report concludes: “The Senate now needs to pass S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. And Congress should complete its critical work on food safety legislation before the end of this year.”

Image by Flickr user clayirving, used under a Creative Commons license.